


Shocking

by doctormissy



Series: Prompt Fills and Challenge Entries [8]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Crack, Humor, M/M, Music, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 08:58:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8617948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormissy/pseuds/doctormissy
Summary: Some of MI6 employees have really strange - an unexpected - music tastes.





	1. Q

**Author's Note:**

> Written for MI6 Cafe's November challenge that was about combining Bond and music. I wanted to write these headcanons into fics for a long time, but this challenge was the thing that made me actually do so.

James Bond strode to Q-Branch through the empty, wet, and silent underground corridors with thick, brick walls – only the space wasn’t silent at all. He could hear loud thumping of rhythmic music beats coming from the laboratory.

Unusual, he thought.

And what was even odder, it wasn’t a calm and peaceful symphony played by stringed orchestra or jazz trumpets he would expect to be the man’s favourite genre. It was _hard. Metal_ —or some other kind of devilish music he refused to understand.

His instincts told him to outdraw his pistol and get into vigilant agent-mode, because that just couldn’t be Q behind that door listening to that with volume up, could it?

However, he has never actually asked the boffin about kinds of music he preferred, or what programmes did he like to watch on TV, or what was his idea of perfect breakfast. (Yet.)

 _Did he want to know, though? And why would he; Q was just his colleague. Superior, in fact._

Either way, he decided not to scare the person off by accidentally having them at gunpoint, was it Q inside or not. Although, if there were an intruder, they most certainly wouldn’t be playing music from Q’s speakers aloud. 

Bond arrived to the heavy, metal door and opened it. The beats escaped the lab and spread through the corridor, fading away in afar. But in his ears it was strident and highly unpleasant. 

The singer – if he could be even called singer – was screaming some rather unrecognisable words, accompanied by drums and electric guitars in a melody that simply couldn’t be pleasurable to a sane person’s ears. 

Q was in there indeed, sitting on the floor covered in papers in the middle of the room, immersed in fiddling with some kind of electronic device – he was building it, apparently. Bond couldn’t see it, since the man sat with his back to him. He hummed along with the song, occasionally singing a line. It was kind of hilarious, to be honest, hearing Q do _that_. 

Q didn’t notice the agent’s arrival. 

“Q!” Bond called after him. He still didn’t acknowledge his approach. “Q! Turn that blasted thing off, I can’t even think, for God’s sake.” 007 had to shout. _“Or should I say Devil’s sake?”_

The sudden presence of another human being behind his back (who could hear what he was listening to) startled the Quartermaster. He winced and swiftly turned to see who has honoured his dusty lab by coming. 

“007, what-what are you doing here? I thought you’ve left hours ago,” he wondered, also shouting howled down the band singing _‘heavy, you want it heavy, welcome to my world’ blah blah blah_ , Bond didn’t understand the rest. “Oh, and sorry about that. It helps me think.”

He searched through piles of files until he located a remote control somewhere underneath them, and pressed pause. By the flush spreading across his cheeks, Bond could tell he was embarrassed about someone getting to know his little secret. 

Bond was about to ask how could _that_ help him think, but considered it a dumb and offensive question he’d only get a death glare for, because Q would know he had prejudice about the ‘different’ kinds of music (and lifestyles). Therefore, he expressed the surprise of getting to know Q listened to that of all possible things that could come to his mind when he picturing the eccentric cardigans and colourful t-shirts he always wore. 

He absolutely couldn’t imagine his Quartermaster in leather jacket, black trousers with spiked belt and all the clothes people who liked harder music tended to put on. That was so not Q. 

He made a point of getting to know him a bit better and perhaps making him explain with pictures. He must have had those, old photos. Assuming he didn’t always dress the way he did since he was recruited to MI6.

“What, 007, you thought I’d listen to some 80’s pop shit like you? Not everyone is what you think they are like. You know nothing about me or my tastes,” replied Q dryly, teasing as ever. He got up. 

“For your information, I listen to classic rock too, sometimes.”

“Queen and The Clash don’t really count,” Q retorted, shaking his head. He was looking Bond in the eye. “Anyway, what do you want, 007? I’m a rather busy person, in case you haven’t noticed.” His eyes travelled to the device. 

Bond came closer, looking at it. It was some sort of a metallic box with circuitry, so far. He pointed at it with one finger, “Are you building that thing for me?”

“No, for 0011.” Q averted his gaze from the Double-Oh and crouched. He started to pick up blueprints and papers covered with his notes and calculations that lay in the way to his desk. He really didn’t wish to step on them. “You’re not the centre of my universe, Bond.”

“Oh, I’m hurt, Q,” he responded with putting a hand on his chest in a way that mocked surprise and faux-offended tone in his voice. Q thought it was adorable how much of a drama queen the man was, even if he couldn’t see him. 

“I came to pick up some extra gizmos I happen to be in need of on that mission,” he continued, serious this time. He wouldn’t need to bother the Quartermaster at all, had he given him what he had asked for few hours ago, when he visited for the first time. “If you want M to personally affirm it’s his orders, you can just call him. I even brought the file this time.”

Bond threw the paper folder on the desk, which he approached in the meantime. He held it behind his back for the time of the whole conversation. It landed with a smack. 

Q opened it and began to browse it, frowning at Bond. Oh, how many precious and expensive pieces of equipment were going to end up in the trash this time?

Bond gave Q a complacent and not so chaste smile, earlier music bombshell forgotten somewhere in the back of their minds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Q was listening to was [A Welcome Burden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3NdXha5Hyg) by Disturbed. I like to imagine that he listens to good old heavy metal and that stuff my family and I listen to, and M told him he’d get the job of the Quartermaster only if he wears ‘normal’ clothes etc. Also, I hate people having prejudice about our kind, cos we. Are. Not. Satanists! I made fun of that (and of Bond) a little here.


	2. Eve

Bond thought the Q incident fulfilled the week’s quota for surprises – which was true only until he decided to go to the gym at 11 AM Saturday and met Moneypenny. 

Or, more precisely, black hip hop blasting from a Bluetooth speaker interrupted his thoughts of the rather rough debriefing he returned from half an hour ago the moment he entered the room. 

He couldn’t decide what was more shocking or more awful, Q’s metal or her rappers? 

M’s assistant was alone in the gymnasium, occupying the treadmill. It ran nearly at full speed. She was wearing elastic sports clothes, which was a feast for the agent’s eyes, but it was also something he wasn’t used to see. Everyone kind of supposed she wore dresses and costumes even to bed. 

Her curly hair was jumping up and down with every step. Her eyes were closed and the music was all the way up, therefore she couldn’t notice Bond enter. 

He thought he could use it to his advantage, silently sneak up on her, and switch off the thing himself. He had some experience with Q already – this time he could exploit the moment of surprise.

Moreover, frightening the hell out of Eve was only a fair solace after the nasty scar and a myriad of pain she and her rifle inflicted on him years ago. 

Bond didn’t really need to endeavour to remain inaudible; stealth was one of his spy superpowers. He crept up on her from behind and hunkered down to the ground to turn off the hideous music coming from a small pink apparatus laid on the floor. 

Suddenly, the room was silent, and Eve abruptly turned round, jumping off the treadmill and pinning Bond to the ground with a knee on his stomach and hand pressing on his neck. Her reflexes were still quick as an agent’s. 

Bond was probably more taken aback than she was. She was panting, but fully aware of her moves. He partially expected her to yell, not to react in that way.

“007,” she said, loosening the pressure on the Double-Oh’s neck, “don’t you ever do that to me again, or I swear I won’t be as gentle.” 

Eve got up and released him fully. Bond stood up and brushed nonexistent dust off his navy-blue t-shirt. 

“You call this gentle?” he replied in sotto voce, only centimetres away from her face. He was staring in her eyes.

“No one touches my music,” Eve said, deadpan. She hopped on the exercise machine again. And of course she turned it back on, if to annoy Bond. She was well aware such kind of music rent his ears. 

“Are you here to exercise or not?”

“Rap, Eve? Really? I thought you’d be more into something… slower.” Bond couldn’t refrain from asking. She, and Q, made him realise he knew all about his colleagues at work, but as far as personal matters were concerned, he knew absolutely nothing. 

Who else was to surprise him with odd music taste, Mallory himself?

Bond walked to the barbells, because they were the furthest from Eve and her treadmill. 

“So you’d known, rap comes from the broken black expressing the woes of the tough life they went through at the times of slavery through heartfelt music. They told the truth and were deplored for it. It’s honest, and the lyrics have a point, unlike those sappy pop singers that only sing about love. Or _white_ rappers, for that matter.”

He-he _wasn’t_ listening to sappy love songs! Who did everyone think he was, Tanner, Beyoncé lover? 

(When he thought about that, he came to a conclusion he wouldn’t expect the Chief of Staff to like such music either. Everyone knew he did, though when one really thought about it, it was as odd as Q liking metal or Eve liking hip hop.)

But apart from that, he had to admit she had a point, even if he was proud enough to never say so in front of her. 

“And besides, I like dubstep too.” 

Bond took two 10kg plates and put them on each side of the bar. He lay on the bench and lifted the barbell up and down until he pushed Ms Moneypenny and her annoying music to the back of his conscious mind, humming snippets of an A-Ha song instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The music was [Scary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7xA8Hzuyac) by STORMZY. 
> 
> Hope you liked!


End file.
